Children’s television shows used to walk a fine line between enchantingly adorable and unnervingly creepy.

There have been so many kids shows that have come and gone over the years that it’s hard to keep track of them all, but Mental Floss’s Ransom Riggs went down the YouTube rabbit hole and came back with a few shining examples, to remind us how creepy some kid's shows used to be:

Maybe it had something to do with the strange (and typically low budget) critter costumes, or the slowed speech meant to keep the whole thing kid friendly, but the creepiness most definitely DID NOT have ANYTHING to do with the puppets!

Okay, maybe it had a little bit to do with the puppets, because they usually weren't friendly looking Muppet style puppets- more often than not they looked like the stuff nightmares are made of.

And speaking of creepy puppets, there's one show missing from Ransom's list of creepy kid's TV shows, one puppet filled program that used to simultaneously fascinate and disturb me to the core as a youngster- The Letter People.

The animated sequences were delightfully folksy, and totally meant to appeal to a Flower Child's child, but there was something about those maniacally grinning puppets with the totally blank expressions that used to haunt me in my dreams!